The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-02-22
JOKES WILL NOT ANSWER.

JOKES WILL NOT ANSWER.
The correspondent of the Louisville Courier
Journal, writing from this city, says in a
letter printed yesterday:
1.-THE Republicans affect to believe that the |
loose management and defalcation of Dem
ocratic warden will furnish them effective |
material in 1888. They have already |
begun to shrek, Turn the rascals out,
and pretend that they will be able to supple |
ment the prison rottenness with damaging |
developments concerning the management Of
the Insane Hospital. Those who are in po-
sition to know positively assert that the in
vestigation Of the Insane Hospital will dis
close nothing dscreditable So far as the
committee have gone they have, 1 believe
been able to show that on few occasions, in
the past two or three years, there have been
bad butter and poor meat in the supplies
furnished for the use of the hospital. So far
as the butter is concerned, very proper and
discreet persons, who buy that commodity for
use at their own private tables, have oc
casonally been imposed on in the matter of
butter by getting hold of rancid article, in
spite of all the vigilance they might exercise.
l have occasionally seen bad butter on hotel
tables, and l have been introduced to meat
that was almost strong enough to require
LII
We print this, not for the humor there is
in it, but to show the people Of Indiana to
what lengths the Democrats are ready to 60 in
defending the infamous management Of the
Insane Hospital. There have been ne Repub-
lican and partisan charges against this insti-
tuition. The charges were made by non
partisans, and supported in every detail by
Democratic evidence. 1t is Of record that
the butter, bought of a Democratic pet at
high prices, has been, for large part of the
time, bad and sometimes maggotty, and fit
only to be condemned by health officer. 1t
has been proved that fat hogs were bought Of
prominent Democratic politicians that were
sick and dying at the time, and that hogs
were butchered for the tables of the hospital
from the droves while some of the animals
were lying dead in the same pens 1t has
been proved that prunes and currants have
been so bad as to be condemned by the super
test by order of the trustees. These facts
as to the food served up to the poor, de-
mented wards of the State have been proved
beyond question by Democratic testimony.
And besides all this, there has been evidence
of the grossly partisan, corrupt and extrava-
CANT manner in which the institution has been
conducted. Yet the only answer is to be,
that sometimes the best housekeeper gets
picked up on bad butter and that there are
hotels and boarding houses where the butter
has sometimes been known to be rancid and
the meats strong!
We say to the Democratic correspondents
and editors that this sort of stuff will not
satisfy the people of Indiana. That was
tried during the late campaign. The people
gave their answer to such defense in Novem-
ber When their great benevolences are be-
ing prostituted to the basest partisan and per-
sonal purposes; when the chief eleemosynary
institution-the Hospital for the Insane-is
| grossly mismanaged, as the proof overwhelm-
ingly shows it has been; when the patients
are compelled to eat foul food and are SUBJ
| jected to abuse and outrage; when corruption
runs riot, and ''the highest prices are paid for
the poorest supplies" the voters and tax
payers of Indiana are not to be placated by
stale jokes and the brutal buffoonery of court
fools in cap and bells. The voters of the
State will bring the scoundrels who are re-
| sponsible for the abuses and crimes, now being
uncovered in all their hideousness, to close
and searching account, as well as the political
party that attempts to defend or palliate
them, and which is responsible for their exist
ence and continuance. The Democrats had
better get ready to meet the people rather
than to spend their time with inventing hui
morous excuses that are as sick as the cholera
smitten hogs bought for the use of the Insane
Hospital.
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